Unraveled (4 page)

“Cherry Creek?” Mimi’s brows shot up. “I should say.”

“I figure after the long hours I put in with Warner’s business, I deserve some luxury,” Kelly said, grinning. “Believe me, I really appreciate sinking into that huge jetted tub in the bathroom. What a treat.”

Jennifer popped around the corner of the hallway that led into Pete’s café at the back of the knitting shop. “Hey, I didn’t expect to see you here. Thanks for the congrats message on my voice mail. I went into a happy dance when I saw Housemann’s offer on my desk this morning.”

“Well, you deserve some good news,” Kelly said.

“Did you sell your new client’s mountain property? That’s wonderful, Jennifer,” Mimi said with a big smile.

“Thanks, guys. It came in at the right time, too. By the way, I’m going up there on Saturday, Kelly. You want to take a short trip into Poudre Canyon? You need to relax,” Jennifer suggested.

“I might take you up on that offer,” Kelly said, picturing the canyon’s rock walls against the blue Colorado sky, the Poudre River running beside the road. Peaceful. Sometimes Kelly would escape up into the canyon all by herself just to think. She’d sit on a rock beside the river and clear her head. See what thoughts popped out.

“Who is that with Lizzie in the yarn room?” Mimi asked, glancing toward the adjoining room. “It looks like Curt’s author friend, Eustace. Is he looking for yarns? I should go and help him.” She started to push back her chair.

“No, no, don’t,” Jennifer admonished, holding up her hand. “Eustace came into the café this morning with Curt to have breakfast and decided to stay and work on his computer. Curt left to do errands.” Jennifer leaned closer and lowered her voice. “After an hour, I noticed Eustace leave the table quickly and rush outside. I wondered what was up, because he’d left his computer open on the table. That’s when I saw Lizzie outside, picking up several small packages she must have dropped on the flagstone path. Eustace obviously noticed and went out to help her.”

“Well, that was gentlemanly of him,” Mimi said, winding yarn again.

“But the best part is that he took Lizzie to his table and they’ve been sitting in the café all morning, chatting up a storm.” Jennifer gave them both a Cheshire cat grin.

Kelly glanced into the adjoining yarn room. Sure enough, Lizzie was holding a skein of turquoise yarn and seemed to be explaining something, while Eustace stood attentively listening.
Well, well, well.

“I’ll be darned,” Kelly said, returning her friend’s conspiratorial smile.

“Oh, my goodness,” Mimi said, eyes alight. “I’ll have to tell Burt. Now, we should all act as if we haven’t noticed a thing, understand?”

Kelly nodded. “Don’t worry. After watching Megan slowly warm up to Marty a couple of years ago, Jennifer and I are pros at pretending not to notice.”

“Well, time to get back to the café. I simply wanted to share my observations with you two. Give everyone a heads-up so they’ll be on guard.” Jennifer gave a wave and slipped around the corner.

Kelly watched Lizzie’s round face, flushed now, and dimpling with her cheerful smile. Kelly noticed Eustace was smiling as well. Whatever they were talking about, yarns or the weather, they both looked very happy.

“They’re so cute,” Mimi observed as she continued winding. Kelly couldn’t resist. She turned to Mimi with a wicked grin. “That’s exactly what we all said when we saw you and Burt flirting over the yarn bins.”

Mimi’s mouth dropped open, and she flushed scarlet. “You
didn’t
!”

“Yeah, we did,” Kelly teased. “You two were so cute together, and you never noticed us spying on you.”

“You spied on us! How
could
you?” Mimi exclaimed, clearly shocked.

“We couldn’t help it.” Kelly laughed. “You two were in the shop and so were we. I’d go into the yarn room to get something, and you two would be giggling over the yarn bins.”

“Giggling!”
Mimi, clearly indignant. “We were not!”

“Yes, you were, and you were so
cute
, too.” Kelly teased again.

This time, Mimi picked up a nearby ball of yarn and tossed it right at Kelly. Kelly simply cackled in reply and caught the yarn before it hit her face. First baseman’s reflexes still razor sharp.

Steve pulled his big red truck into Greg and Lisa’s driveway, behind their cars. Marty’s car was parked on the street, he noticed. So was Jennifer’s. Everyone was there. He stepped out of the truck and slammed the door, pausing only to check if any more FOR SALE signs had popped up since he’d been there last.

He felt that old familiar wrench in his gut as he counted every one.
Four
. Four that he could see down this street and around the corner. At least he hadn’t heard about any other houses gone into foreclosure. Steve strode up the walk to the front door and rang the bell, a mixture of apprehension and anticipation running through him. He needed to relax with old friends, even if they couldn’t resist ragging on him. Just to talk about something other than business. He needed
downtime
.

The door opened wide. Greg stood there with Steve’s favorite amber ale. “C’mon in, buddy,” he beckoned and handed Steve the brown bottle. “Pizza’s on the coffee table. We left you some.”

“That’s a first,” Steve joked as he entered the foyer. “You must miss me.”

“Yeah, we do,” Marty called from the great room where he sat on the love seat beside Megan. “Even Greg and I can’t finish all this pizza.”

“Here, Steve,” Lisa said, pointing to the cocoa-colored armchair. “Sit down and dig in. There’s more than enough.”

Steve quickly scanned the circle of friends who’d gathered. “Hey, guys.” He gave a crooked smile before he sat. “I grabbed a burger on the way out of town, but this sure smells good.” He took a long drink of the Fat Tire ale.

“Your favorite, pepperoni and cheese,” Megan said, pushing the box with several tempting slices toward him.

“Better watch those fast-food burger stops. They’re deadly,” Jennifer warned as she sipped her diet soda in a nearby love seat.

Pete sat beside her. “Ohhhh, yeah.” He leaned over to grab a pizza slice. “Catch us up on what you’ve been doing since we last got together. Three weeks ago, I think.”

“You said you were starting some new project with Sam’s firm.” Greg sank into the sofa on the other side of Lisa and took a drink of his beer.

“How’s that going?” Marty asked as he snatched another pizza slice.

Steve savored the pizza before answering.
Yessss
. Now, he could feel himself start to relax. “It’s going pretty good. Heating up, actually. Thornton city organized this group project to renovate one of the older industrial areas of the city, and they came up with the idea of letting several different firms collaborate on the project. Sam jumped on it as soon as he heard about it.” Steve took a long drink of ale. “He’d wanted to diversify into renovating distressed properties, so this was perfect.”

He snagged another pizza slice and practically inhaled it. So good. A helluva lot better than eating alone late at night in front of the television.

“That sounds like a pretty big project,” Lisa said. “Is it just smaller construction companies or builders that are involved ?”

Steve shook his head while he swallowed. “No, there are some pretty big developers, too. The city wanted to involve a lot of builders, so they’ve parceled out all of the specialty work. Even smaller firms are included.” He grinned. “Smaller than Sam’s, I mean.”

Lisa shot a glance to the others, then back to Steve. “So there are big and little firms involved.”

Steve tipped back his beer. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“Sounds like a lot of work,” Marty said, twirling his beer bottle on his knee. “Is your boss gonna raise your salary again?”

Steve chuckled. “Well, kind of. He’s put me in charge of handling the project and hinted there’d be some sort of promotion.”

“Wow, that sounds good,” Jennifer commented, snitching a sliver of pizza. “Sam must really be impressed with you, Steve.”

“Yeah, I think he is. Sam’s a straight-up guy. Easy to work for. Says what he means and doesn’t jerk you around. Treats everybody fairly.” He took another long drink. “And he also doesn’t like to go to meetings,” he added with a smile. “And there are a lot of meetings that go along with this project. So, guess who gets to go to those.”

Megan looked around at her friends, then asked, “Is it only developers at the meetings or other people, too?”

Steve reached for another slice. “I wish it was just the developers; then it wouldn’t be so crowded and we could move faster. But every company brings a whole boatload of staff. Those rooms are packed.”

“Kind of a mini mob scene,” Marty suggested with a little smile.

“Oh, yeah.” Steve upended his ale and drained it this time.

“Here, I’ll get you another,” Greg offered, hopping off the sofa and heading for the kitchen.

“I wonder if any of the companies I’ve worked with in Denver are in that project,” Jennifer said, staring off into the room. “Let’s see . . . Hoffman Brothers, Warner Development, Ryker Builders. Any of them?”

Steve let himself sink into the sofa cushions, feeling more muscles let go. This is exactly what he needed. “Yeah, all three as a matter of fact.”

“Here you go, buddy,” Greg said, handing Steve another Fat Tire.

Steve took a long, deep drink, then let himself sink into the sofa even more. Glancing around the circle of his friends, he noticed they were all staring at him at the same time.
What was up with that?
Maybe it was his imagination. He was exhausted when he left Denver. And now, he felt sleepy. What was wrong with him? Two beers, and he was falling asleep.

“Warner Development is Kelly’s client, you know,” Lisa said, giving him a little smile.

All thoughts of sleep evaporated in the time it took to say her name. Every nerve cell went wide awake. Steve sat up straighter. “Yeah, I know.” He stared at the ale in his bottle.

“You know, Kelly’s been to those same meetings,” Jennifer said.

Steve’s head shot up. “What? How do you know?”

“Because she told us,” Pete said, smiling at him. “In fact, she even said she saw you there.”

Steve’s mouth dropped open. He couldn’t help it.
“What!”

“But you didn’t see her,” Greg added, with a wry smile.

“Two ships passing in the night,” Pete repeated his line to Kelly.

Steve stared at his friends, who were watching him and smiling, sadly, he thought.
What the hell!
How could he have missed her? He was an idiot! Stupid, S
tupid
!

“You gotta start looking around, buddy,” Marty advised with a crooked smile.

His friends wanted to say more but were holding back, Steve could tell. But there was nothing his friends could say that could compete with the mental abuse he was inflicting on himself inside.

You idiot! What is the matter with you? You can’t even take the time to look around a room? Are you stupid, or what? Jackass!

He rubbed his eyebrows. “Yeah, you’re right. I . . . I can’t believe I missed her.”

Megan opened her mouth, but Lisa waved her silent. “Don’t beat yourself up too bad, Steve. Kelly said you were on the other side of the room.”

“Check out the next meeting,” Megan said. “If you see her, just go up and say hi.”

Steve gave Megan a jaundiced look. “Are you
kidding
? Just say hi? She probably wouldn’t even speak to me.” He swirled the ale in his bottle. “And I wouldn’t blame Kelly. Not after what I did. I walked out on her, and . . . that hurt her bad.”

The little circle fell silent. Steve drained his beer, and Greg got up to retrieve another.

“Here you go, buddy,” Greg handed Steve the ale.

“I’d better not. Gotta drive back to Denver,” Steve said.

“You’re not getting on the highway, not tonight,” Lisa announced in her best schoolmarm voice. “You’re sleeping here on the sofa.”

“Yeah, and come over to the café in the morning and I’ll make you pancakes,” Pete promised, leaning back and draping his arm around the back of the love seat behind Jennifer.

Pete’s pancakes. How long had it been since he devoured a stack? Too long. Steve could almost taste them now.

“Then we’ll go out for a run,” Greg added. “You gotta get back to working out. You look wiped every time we see you. Gotta get your mojo back.”

Steve snorted. “I think it’s lost in all those FOR SALE signs outside.”

“That’s it. We’ve gotta start meeting over at our place,” Megan announced. “No signs around there.”

“And speaking of signs,” Jennifer said, leaning forward. “There will be one less FOR SALE sign outside. An agent in our office had a buyers’ contract accepted. They’re getting that three bedroom ranch around the corner the bank foreclosed on. And another agent has a couple interested in the two-story across the street. So, things are slowly starting to turn around, Steve.”

Steve stared into Jennifer’s warm brown gaze and felt another muscle deep inside his chest let go.
Whoa
. One house under contract and maybe another one. “Wow, Jen . . . that’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time. Better than the new job, even.”

“See, you’re gonna get through this, buddy,” Marty encouraged. “So, start working out again. Start playing some basketball or something till baseball season starts. Get your mojo back.”

“Yeah, Kelly can’t stay mad forever,” Greg said, twirling his empty bottle on his knee. “Can she?”

“Kelly’s not so much mad. She’s just . . . pissed,” Lisa said.

“See, that’s better,” Marty said with a grin. “So, give it a shot.”

“Yeah, ask her to give you a second chance,” Greg advised.

Steve gave them a rueful smile as he sank back into the sofa. “Problem is, I’m not sure I deserve a second chance, guys. I destroyed the best thing I’ve ever had. And . . . and I don’t know how to fix it. Or, if I even can.” The ale had deadened the ache he carried around inside whenever he thought of Kelly. He’d tried to bury it, but it wouldn’t stay buried.

“Man, you don’t even sound like yourself, Steve. We gotta get you back.”